


Requesting Medical Evacuation

by CatLovePower



Category: The Brave (2017)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 07:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12452352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLovePower/pseuds/CatLovePower
Summary: What if that truck exploding at the end of episode 4 had more dire consequences? What if Dalton was more seriously injured that he let on?





	Requesting Medical Evacuation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bubbly88Tay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bubbly88Tay/gifts).



The rocket explodes and they lose communication in the op room. Noah desperately tries to raise anyone on the radio while Hannah searches the satellite imagery, trying to catch some sign that they are alive. They stop breathing, along with everyone in the room, for a few seconds, before Preach’s voice cuts through the silence and jokes, “Status report is whole, healthy, and delivered like a sinner on Sunday.”

They applause and they cheer, but Noah knows they’re not out of the woods yet. As if to confirm his fears, he hears Preach say, “Shit,” followed by some static.

“Black Hawks are twelve minutes out,” Hannah says, and all they can do is wait and watch the unhelpful images taken from far above.

 

As soon as they get the information from Nate, they scramble away, the whole team running from the impact. The drone is upon them, Noah is frantic in their ears. The blast sweeps them off their feet, a fiery ball of fire that shakes the ground and leaves them half deaf.

Preach taps his comm and reassures Noah; they’re alive, Nate too, albeit barely. Then Dalton starts coughing, as he tries to catch his breath but fails. Smoke is rising from the Taliban’s truck, unrecognizable now, like a squashed fruit on the desert sand.

“Sit down,” he tells Dalton, and he guides him down before he falls.

His face looks pale, but they are all covered in dust. He’s still not breathing right, though, he’s wheezing now.

“McG!” Preach bellows. “We need help over here!”

When McGuire kneels down next to Dalton, he seems to know things Preach doesn’t, because he unfastens his tac vest and palpates his chest with a worried look.

Noah is still asking for an update in his ear, so Preach lets their medic do his job and taps it before answering. “ETA on the choppers?”

“Seven minutes. What’s going on?”

“Dalton’s got a chest contusion,” McG supplies. “Not life threatening,” he adds, when he sees Preach’s worried look. “He caught a bullet in his trauma plate earlier.”

Their medic seems calm, so Preach takes it as a good sign and relays the information.

Jaz and Amir are taking point, guarding the road above. Patricia is still beside Nate, pressing not too gently on his torn leg. The kid is out cold, his face ashy and sweaty. They don’t have a lot of time, so he tells Noah that.

“Six minutes,” comes the unhelpful reply.

They can do it, everything is under control, Preach thinks. But he tightens his grip on his SIG, because he’s got a bad feeling about all this.

 

And then things get real shitty, real fast. Two shots ring out. And Amir groans, then falls. Or rather, he just slides down the hill and lies there with no intention of getting back up. There is a trail of blood on the sand behind him.

McG is still propping Dalton up and making sure he is breathing normally, when everyone starts talking at once, and Preach has to take matters into his own hands to get the situation under control. He sits down by Dalton’s side and tells their medic to go.

“We under attack?” Dalton croaks.

“Don’t speak,” Preach mutters. “Jaz, sit rep!”

“He’s hypovolemic,” McG says, to no one in particular. “Was he shot?”

“No incoming fire,” Jaz says, without turning away from the road. “It was all me. No idea what happened with him.”

Dalton makes an awful sound when he breathes, but he looks healthier than before. He’s holding his chest, but he still looks as if he wants to jump to his feet and help; he is probably too weak to actually do it anyway. Preach helps him take out his sidearm.

Amir is still sprawled on the ground, and from where they are, they can’t really see what’s happening. But Jaz can’t be the only one guarding their position, so they look out instead.

 

“How did it get this bad so fast?” McG mutters.

His hands are slick with blood, so is Amir’s BDU. He removes the chest plate and tries to find the source of the bleed. Jaz said it wasn’t enemy fire, so it happened before. Something they missed, something he hid. He realizes he is speaking under his breath, when Amir opens his eyes and says, “I didn’t...” – he draws a shaky breath – “… I didn’t think it was serious.”

He looks bad, his lips are turning blue and he’s fading fast.

 _There!_ A grim smile crosses McG’s face when his fingers finally find a piece of shrapnel, embedded in Amir’s flank.

“I need to turn you over, I need to apply pressure,” he explains, before grabbing Amir’s leg and rolling him into the recovery position.

The metal must be part of the truck that exploded earlier. How he did not fall over sooner was a mystery. Adrenaline could do wonders, but only for so long. The fragment must have shifted, causing the bleeding and leading to shock.

“I see the choppers,” Preach says.

“Six hostiles heading our way,” Jaz announces.

“How bad?” Amir says, his voice muffled.

McG isn’t sure if he’s talking about the mission or his own condition.

“This is going to hurt.”

And without any more warning, he takes the metal piece out and pushes his fingers into the wound, wiggling around until he finds the bleeder.

He was expecting a scream, even a strangled one. But Amir is silent, still conscious and breathing hard into the dark sand.

“Got it,” he says, when he manages to clamp the vein.

He tapes the metallic clamp and hopes it’ll stay in place until evac.

“Whatever,” Amir groans.

The kid is tough, he’ll give him that.

 

He can hear the Black Hawks not far from their position, but he knows better than lifting his head and trying to see them. Loud bursts of gunfire, some screams. McG is keeping him down, half leaning, half sitting on him, but he doesn’t mind.

Confused, he knows he needs an IV, fluids and blood. But he also doesn’t feel that bad, now that he’s lying down. He can feel unconsciousness creeping upon him. Something jolts in his back, and McG is swearing.

“Go help,” he tries to say, but he’s not sure McGuire heard him, because he doesn’t move an inch. Pressure, more prying fingers, and the bite of the clamp once again.

“Is Dalton okay?” Amir asks, out of the blue.

Then McG realizes Preach and him are in his line of sight.

“Better than you.”

“Not hard,” he says.

“Next time, do yourself a favor and tell us when you get impaled by a piece of truck.”

 

He probably answered something witty, but to be honest, he sort of spaced out. The next thing he’s aware of is Dalton’s face looming over him in a helicopter he didn’t recall climbing aboard.

“Yeah, yeah, everyone’s fine.”

Seeing Amir’s confused look, he explains, “Morphine got you panicky, you asked several times already.”

“Nate?” he croaks.

“Yes, even Nate will make it. I’m sure his mom’s real happy about it.”

They both stay silent, and all they can hear are the powerful rotors keeping them up. So Amir tries to take stock of his current predicament; he is lying on his side, propped up so that he isn’t totally flat on his front. His flank is swaddled in bandages, with a drain sneaking out of it. _Wonderful_ , he thinks. He is hooked to an IV, he realizes, no blood, only fluids.

“McG asked me to give you that,” Dalton says, and Amir blinks at him. He is holding out his open palm, with a cruel looking piece of metal on it. It’s black and jagged, at least two inches long. “He said you may want it.”

 _That was in me_ , Amir thinks.

“Since you were so eager to kept it a secret back there,” Dalton adds, with a tight smile.

“Didn’t–” his voice breaks, and he tries to swallow despite his very dry throat. “Didn’t think… that bad,” he manages.

“I believe you,” Dalton says. “But we’re a team. Don’t forget it.”

“I won’t,” he whispers. He closes his eyes and lets the morphine lull him to sleep once again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Overdue fanfic for the whump exchange over on Tumblr. It was supposed to be SGA, but... The Brave happened and I had to write it.


End file.
